Mea Culpa: police forces getting a move on

In a report on the government’s plan to change the policing of pro-Palestinian marches, we said: “The prime minister’s official spokesperson said police forces would label such demonstrations ‘intimidatory’ and move on protesters under a new policing protocol.” Keen as Rishi Sunak may be to be reported as “cracking down” on marches that many Conservative MPs dislike, we think his spokesperson meant “move protesters on” not “move on protesters”, which is a bit different.

Dead language: In Monday’s review of something called Celeb Big Brother, we said its “‘Live Launch’ feels like it’s still got a touch of rigour mortis about it”. The Latin phrase is rigor mortis, referring to the stiffness of a corpse. The word acquired a “u” in British (but not American) English, but has now evolved from “stiffness” to mean strictness.

Do we mean us? In an article about the prospect of another Donald Trump presidency, we said that something about it would be “no less damaging to we Europeans”. Thanks to Bernard Theobald for reminding us that this should have been “us Europeans”. I don’t know my accusative from a hole in the ground, but decide such things by the test of leaving out the last word. It would be “no less damaging to us”.

Stumped: In a sports report on Wednesday, we summarised Jonny Bairstow’s Test career, which included “affecting 70 dismissals behind the stumps”. Thanks to Roger Thetford for pointing it out. We meant “effecting” – as in giving effect to the dismissals, rather than influencing them.

In more cricket news, we referred in the present tense to a young bowler who “draws a false shot from the high-elbowed batter, who takes a diving catch as he flings himself forward…”. That “who” attaches itself to the batter, implying that having played his stroke he took his own wicket with a diving catch. Instead of “who takes”, we should have just said “taking”. Thanks to Philip Nalpanis.

University challenge: In our report of Jacqueline Foster, the Conservative peer, paying damages to a University of Oxford student for false allegations of antisemitism, we said that Melika Gorgianeh represented the Christ Church College on University Challenge. Thanks to Richard Hanson-James for pointing out what I had forgotten, which is that Christ Church is called just that, with no “College”. It is a college, so we could have called it that with a lowercase “c”, but just Christ Church would be better.

In the same report, which was partly about Lady Foster misinterpreting the team’s octopus mascot as an anti-Jewish symbol, we had the plural as “octopi”. Purists frown on a Latin ending on a Greek word, but I just think that “octopuses” is a more natural English word.

Two become one: We used “underway” and “anymore” as single words several times over the past week. We said “when things got underway” in a rugby match, when I would expect “under way”. And we said that someone did “not want to be openly Jewish on public transport anymore”, where I would prefer “any more”.

It doesn’t matter much. Language evolves, and one thing that happens is that words used together get squashed into a single word. “To day” used to be two words, the “to” meaning “on (this)”, and was then hyphenated, “to-day”, until the early 20th century. But if we stick to the older forms until the newer ones become universal, it is a simple trick that makes our writing seem more authoritative.